


Starting Over (Is Harder Than it Seems)

by The_Peridot_Shade



Series: Many Lives, Many Tales—None of Them Easy [3]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Celebrimbor would like a refund on his family legacy but not his family, Depression, Dysfunctional Family, False Dichotomies, Gen, Hope & Despair, Loving Family Despite Their MAJOR Flaws, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Esteem Issues, Sort-of Implied Emotional Abuse, Violence, he's also determined to screw up in entirely different ways than his family did, if that makes sense
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-30
Updated: 2018-07-30
Packaged: 2019-06-18 15:21:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15488832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Peridot_Shade/pseuds/The_Peridot_Shade
Summary: The House of Finwë survived into the Second Age, but few were left in Middle Earth to carry the burden and privilege of that legacy.  Of those that remained in Endor, only three remembered the Trees—and one was, for all intents and purposes, lost.  Galadriel and Celebrimbor were the last remnants in the East of the tumultuous family that ruled Tirion, having lost most everything up to and including an entire continent.  It was time for a new beginning.  But the past always leaves a mark—and these two cousins have lived an Age and more.A pair of character studies exploring the circumstances and personal history that defined the roles Celebrimbor and Galadriel played in the Second Age, viewed, as always in this series, through the lens of mental illness.





	Starting Over (Is Harder Than it Seems)

**Author's Note:**

> Telperinquar has lost many homes, many loved ones, and none of his too-selfless and enduring nature. Once, he drew a line in the sand, and it was a decision he regrets not at all—and yet wishes could have been different.
> 
> Trigger Warnings: Depression, Family Dysfunction, Hints at Emotional Abuse, PTSD-related Fatalistic Thought Patterns, Non-specific and Up To Interpretation Suicidal Ideation
> 
> I may come back and edit this chapter when I get around to posting the Galadriel one—this part has been sitting in my WIP folder for something like six months because it reached a resting place of sorts but doesn't quite feel complete to me. But at some point you just have to take a leap of faith, so I decided to go ahead and post it since I'm (finally) recovered from my latest depressive episode and don't want to slip back into that headspace any time soon, even just to write. Let me know what you think!

When you are a child, you are never sure whether or not you're happy (looking back, it's no surprise you were confused…your childhood coincided with the beginning of the trouble between your House and your cousins'—the only people who might understand the way you felt are Itarillë and Artaresto, who were, like you, expected to carry enmities that really had little to do with you or them).You are content, mostly by your mother's doing, and challenged by your father in intellectual pursuits that are the closest you come to true joy (and by your grandfather, though few remember his love for his family when they can remember his arrogance and recklessness).

You love your father.Your uncle, too.But you cannot forgive what they have done (Nargothrond is the first place that's felt like home since you left Formenos, _not Tirion, all that you associate with Tirion is grief and Oaths and blood on your great-uncle's throat_ , and Finrod is, _was, now,_ one of the rare relatives who sees _you_ and not your father or grandfather).You will miss them, but it is time to be more than a son, a nephew, a pale reflection of your grandfather ( _you love him too, but it's easier to forget that, to forget hours in his workshop before he became too jealous of his secrets, hours when he would patiently guide the hands of the child you were_ —it's too hard to reconcile who your grandfather was with the demon he's become in the imagination of elves and dwarves and men who never even met him, never knew his curiosity and intellect and fierce passion for life).

Whispers follow you, always hushed before you can make out more than a word or two, but you know what they say, and you resent it (your family may be strange and fierce and tumultuous, but they're _your family_ and you love them so much that sometimes you find yourself speaking without intending to— _yes, they have done terrible things_ , you say, _but they are still people, not monsters, and they are my family_ —the reactions are always bitterly amusing; do people honestly expect you to hate your kin?It has always been the acts you despise, not the ones who perform them).

Narvi asks you, once, how you elves can bear to build such open structures, unsheltered from foe and elements alike.You think of Nargothrond, sacked and looted, left to Glaurung's mercies; of Gondolin and the stories you were told of its fall in fire and blood; of Menegroth, and your cousin's voice when she told you, shaking, of the deaths of half of your remaining kin (and the deaths they, too, caused, proud lord and small child alike falling to their blade and at their command—it haunts you nearly as much as the Kinslaying you were there for, and more than the flights from one doomed kingdom after another).You sigh, and tell him: _my kin once thought as you do, and it made no difference in the end.Better to die beneath the stars than to die having only seldom glimpsed their light._

Artanis—Galadriel now, as it's been for an Age and more, but sometimes your mind can't quite separate past from present (the past you'd like to forget, _blood and fire, the clash of swords, words spoken in anger and grief, red blood and black on your grandfather's/great-uncle's/father's/uncles'/cousins' hands,_ ** _it was never meant to be like this_** )—she warns you not to trust Annatar.You don't need her interference.You know the moment you see him that he will be your death.You welcome him with open arms.

Sometimes you can't figure out if it's despair or hope that you feel.Are they really all that different?(Yes, they are, you know that, but it's never as simple as people like to make it out to be.)

Your hope has always been tied to your work.You think it's ironic that you, who denied your family, disavowed your kin, have always been the most like your grandfather (or so people say—you know better, know that Fëanor will always be what they see when they look at you, not _you as you are_ ).But Fëanor's work was his undoing because he thought his work was all his own—you know the work of your hands will bring you down because hope was meant to be shared, to kindle the heart and stoke the spirit, and you have always shared too much of yourself (it was the only way to survive in your family, _someone_ had to give, to bend, and it was never going to be any of your proud fair kin…but woe to the fool who mistakes your peacemaking for weakness— _everyone knows that Curufin's son turned his back on his kin, but they forget_ ** _why_** ).

You have always known that history was never going to be kind to anyone of your blood.It's one of the reasons you left (if you had to be a kinslayer, a traitor, in name, you would at least not be one in deed, _not again_ ), but in your heart you know you'll never escape it.When you begin work on the rings, you think you might yet create a legacy other than _the son of a Fëanorion_ , might yet make the world a better place (you know better, know that all you're doing is trading one bitter legacy for another, _Celebrimbor Ringsmith_ _instead of Telperinquar Curufinwion, son of a kinslayer_ ).

When Annatar reveals himself to be Sauron (as you expected-hoped-dreaded, _Gorthaur who slew the cousin your father drove to his death_ ) you simply smile with delicious irony at history's repeating itself (but not really, you aren't your grandfather and Sauron isn't his master, you are both more subtle than the last players of this game— _you might, you think in your most vulnerable moments, alone in Sauron's dungeon, have actually been friends, but then he returns and so does the pain, and you dare not call that particular thought to mind in his presence, let alone voice it, though you are very, very good at keeping your thoughts from him_ ), and salvage what hope you can from the remnants of your grand vision.The Three are your masterworks.It is only fitting that they are your _last_ works (they were always meant to go to anyone but you—you don't trust yourself to avoid Fëanor's folly—it's what saves you, in the end, gives you the strength to endure: the realization that you _have_ surpassed your forebear, not in the products of your craft or the scope of your influence, but in managing both to screw up in your own way instead of repeating his, and to leave behind more than a trail of blood and ashes).


End file.
